Fifth Year student Jamie has been awarded a highly prestigious Arkwright Engineering Scholarship, recognising his outstanding talent and ambition in computer science and engineering.
The Arkwright Scholarship is one of the UK’s most respected engineering scholarship programmes, designed to support and inspire future leaders in STEM. Scholarships are awarded through a rigorous application and interview process to students who demonstrate exceptional potential and commitment to engineering.
Jamie earned his scholarship through an impressive independent machine learning project focused on predicting Formula One qualifying and race results using data analysis and artificial intelligence.
A passionate Formula One fan, Jamie began teaching himself advanced machine learning techniques last summer before developing the project over several months. “My initial proposal was to predict Formula One qualifying results using machine learning, and then I extended it by predicting the race as well,” he explained. “I wanted to get my hands on the data and see what I could do with it.”
As part of the scholarship process, Jamie produced a detailed research poster and delivered a presentation to a panel including an engineering professional and an education specialist. He thanked Mr Currigan, Head of DT who runs Trinity’s Arkwright application programme, for supporting him through the interview process, saying, “Mr Currigan helped me prepare for the kinds of questions they might ask and encouraged me to think carefully about my answers,”
Reflecting on the experience, Jamie said: “It was really helpful for organising my thoughts about the project and thinking about what I’d learned from it.”
He hopes eventually to pursue a career in Formula One engineering, with a particular interest in aerodynamics and car design.
“Working in Formula One would be the dream job,” he said.
Jamie has also been inspired by talks from alumnus Daniel Gilbert (Class of 2019) who studied Automotive Engineering at the University of Leeds and now works as a Research & Development Test Engineer for the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 Team.
Alongside the scholarship, Jamie will have access to mentoring and professional engineering networks which will support his future university and career ambitions.
Mr Page, Head of Computing, said, “Jamie is a regular and enthusiastic attendee of Coding Club. Over many months, he has been developing prototypes for his F1 prediction software, and even demonstrated earlier versions to prospective parents during our Open Morning at the start of the academic year. He is consistently keen to identify and tackle challenging problems, including projects such as procedural terrain map generation.
“I am delighted by Jamie’s success in the Arkwright Scholarship process, achieved under the excellent guidance of Mr Currigan. Since his early years at Trinity, Jamie has shown a strong interest in applying his skills beyond the curriculum, and I look forward to seeing the solutions he develops for future challenges.”
Jamie is already exploring new machine learning projects and is currently developing an AI racing bot, while also helping other students learn similar coding and data science skills.
The Arkwright Engineering Scholarships programme supports the next generation of engineers and innovators across the UK.
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